Music May Help Kids With ADHD Concentrate, Study Finds

Many parents would say no TV until your homework is finished, but what about music?

It seems playing music while working could actually help kids with attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) concentrate.

A study, led by Director William E. Pelham Jr. of the Florida International University Center for Children and Families and aimed at examining how distractions such as music and television affect children with ADHD, found that contrary to public belief not all distractions are bad.

“If a kid says he can watch TV and focus, it’s just not true. With television, we found out what we needed to know,” Pelham explained. “But with music we actually discovered, in most cases, it didn’t really affect the children.”

For the experiment, the researchers played rap and rock music for a group of both medicated and non-medicated male students with ADHD along with a control group of male students who had not been diagnosed with ADHD.

Pelham found that most of the students were not distracted by music and in some cases they found that listening to music actually helped the kids with ADHD complete their work. An even bigger revelation was that the researchers found listening to music was nearly as effective as medication.

Pelham says more research needs to be done to see if music could really offer long term benefits, but encourages parents of children who have been diagnosed with ADHD to have their kids listen to music in hopes it will make homework time a little easier.